Why My Project is Disapproved?

Not too long ago, the CloudNovel staff has been working on disapproving and approving all of the public visual novels and dress up games on CloudNovel site. Why are we doing this? It is to make sure CloudNovel can provide a good quality visual novels and dress up games to all of you.

WHAT? Then why did my project get a disapproval? I worked hard on it!

Please calm down. First, we need to clarify the meaning of ‘disapproval’.

Getting disapproval does not mean the end of the world. When we disapprove of your project, we do NOT delete it. Which means, it is still playable and available on CloudNovel.

Wait, what?

The only thing that happens when we disapprove your projects is that we set the privacy of your project as ‘Unlisted’ instead of ‘Public’. The unlisted projects will not show up on the homepage and the search result on CloudNovel.

However, it is still available to play if you share the link of your project to your friends. In other words, ‘Unlisted’ is like making your project private and only available to you and those who have the link to your project.

So, how do you get a link to your ‘Unlisted’ project?

Go to your dashboard, hover your cursor to the project you wanted and click ‘Play’ (only available AFTER you publish your project). Then copy the link on your browser and share it with your friends.

Then to the main topic, why your project was disapproved?

In short, your project was disapproved because you violated at least one of the rules we set for approval.

The rules are:

• be able to load properly (check if there are broken assets in your game if it’s not loading) 

• not contain copyrighted material (any material that isn’t explicitly free to use IS copyrighted). Fangames are allowed, but you have to use your own fan art (art from original show/game/etc are copyrighted) 

• have credits to the rightful owners of art/music/story in the game description or inside the game, where it can easily be found.
  
  • If it all belongs to you, please state so to avoid misunderstandings.
  • If you use free assets from the CloudNovel resource, you still have to give credits.
    • note: the user who posted the asset is not always the owner of it
  • Google and other general sites who are not the owner of the material do NOT count as credit.
  • Please list every owner of the assets you used. It took them time to make them, so please mention them at least.
    
    

• be a polished demo or look professional and effort put in. By a polished demo, it means that it should have at least a story for a visual novel. 

• have a mature label if mature (sexual themes/nudity, swearing, graphic violence, etc). If your game racist or offensive language we will not approve it to appear publicly on the site. If you think your game is not 18+, you can add your own warning but DO NOT add it as a text on the textbox. Do a proper warning that is OBVIOUSLY visible and readable 

• not be a test game. This will result in an immediate disapprove. 

• have visual content (not words only) 
• please don’t abuse of short scenes (scenes with less than 10 pages), consider using screens for them. It will add useless loading. (It’s ok for menu page etc) 
• not use pictures of real people in your game
  
• a project that meant to bring down others will get an immediate disapprove or even at risk of getting deleted

Now, now… we are veee~ry aware that most of the projects were disapproved because of crediting problem. As mentioned above, Google, Pinterest, SoundCloud, and etc are not a proper credit!

So, how do you give credit?

The first thing you should do is check their term of service or term of use. Do they allow of using it on your game? Do they allow non-commercial or commercial use? Do you need to credit the site or the uploader? Do they need you to link it back to their site? Anyway, just read all of them.

If they don’t have anything like that, it never hurt to ask them about it. Especially if it is an art from DeviantArt. Yep, better to ask than one day you wake up and get a notice of stealing others’ work all of sudden.

Yes, using a work of others without permission is stealing! Even if you give credit to them.

Do note that CloudNovel will not be responsible for your act of stealing. To the owners of the work, you can always contact us if you have any problem. We admit that we might overlook some assets in user’s work that might be your works so if it does happen, please do not hesitate to contact us. We will put it down immediately.

That said, please DO NOT use other’s work that is not available for reuse. An extra tips from your majesty moderator, artworks that said ‘I made this art for XXX project/game/etc’ are usually not available for reuse. You can still try your luck by asking them but the probability is very low.

Finally, if you think your project was disapproved unfairly, please contact the moderator.